200,000 notes in 32 hours? Interior rushing to ease endangered-species rules
Rushing to ease endangered-species rules before President Bush leaves office, Interior Department officials are trying to review 200,000..
WASHINGTON — Rushing to ease endangered-species rules before President Bush leaves office, Interior Department officials are trying to review 200,000 public comments in just 32 hours.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has called a team of 15 people to Washington this week to pore over comments about a proposal to exclude greenhouse gases and the advice of federal biologists from decisions about whether dams, power plants and other federal projects could harm species. That would be the biggest change to the rules since 1986.
In an e-mail last week, Bryan Arroyo, the head of the agency's endangered-species program, said the team would work eight hours a day starting Tuesday to the close of business Friday to sort through the comments.
At that rate, according to a committee aide's calculation, 6,250 comments would have to be reviewed every hour. That means each member would be reviewing at least seven comments each minute. It usually takes months to review comments, and by law the government must respond before a rule becomes final.
How fast the rule is finished could determine how hard it is to undo. A new administration could freeze a pending rule. But if it is final before the next president takes office, reversing it would require going through the review-and-comment period again.
I dont understand how people can support the republican party if you give a shiat about our fish and the environment we all share. Just another example where republican priorities lie: with big business, oil sucking parasites who dont give a crap about anything we care about in the PNW...cheers
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Team FROGG TOGG/Pfluegger/Goite Anti-Poser Posse
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